Find Him There
by Allthequirkythings
Summary: Sei finds herself in a duet with Hyotei's tensai. Oshitari Yuushi finds a wallflower fluttering into pieces. "'This is just who I am, Oshitari-kun,'" she lamented, eyes so sad-looking that he almost apologized: tell her he wanted what she had in that quiet, tell her Sei Ichinamori was the most flawless girl he'd ever known." This is life. (and a whole lot of fluff.)


**I really don't know what this is. Just a little piece to get over some writer's block- it ended up a a little heavier than I expected, and it might just turn into a two-shot, who knows. Please review! **

**And if you play some of Yimura's music, it really sets up the story well (and makes it sound, like, a lote better than it actually is)!**

**And _yes_, she's a Mary-Sue wondering why it's so bad to be a Mary-Sue. So love her anyway, you cold-hearted people.**

* * *

"Oshitari-kun?"

He put down his bow, violin tucked under his chin. A blue eyebrow raised.

"Yes, Ichinamori-chan?"

She smiled slightly at hearing her name as her fingers traced the piano keys. It sometimes evaded Yuushi how such a person could keep _smiling _as often as she did. The simple grace of her lips came as naturally to her as wit came to him.

And it came often- rushing automatically before she even thought, even in the strangest, bleak moments, and seemed to carry with it the feeling of a truly satisfied person.

Smiles on others were too often laced with politics and ugly expectations.

But Sei...Sei just _smiled_.

She looked up at him with soulful blue eyes, then down, then at his reflection in the piano, like she couldn't decide.

"W-we should play it at the coda once again, I think."

Sometimes, when he was feeling bored, he'd mess with Sei by responding with a lazy, "Should we?" or an "I don't think so," to which she would respond with a blush and a murmur of agreement.

She'd agree to anything if he sounded loud enough.

Oshitari shook his head slightly. _Such an enigmatic girl. Her mind filled with half-spoken words tumbling from her lips like raindrops. _

Actually, he quite liked that, Yuushi decided, replacing his bow gently onto the string.

Very romantic.

The first twinkling notes floated out.

And a romantic girl. Soft-spoken, delicate, gentle...like the duet they were playing- a far more modern song of which Oshitari would have traditionally preferred, but with a simple and lovely theme. Passing By, by Yiruma.

Of course, being human, Sei Ichinamori could not possibly be as simple and lovely as this; Yuushi watched her as her piano theme fluttered and flew with just a delicate drop of her thin wrists. A sudden chromatic roll brought him back to Earth, and he quickly bowed his notes, lagging against the time.

And there were her fingers stopping again.

Her pale face was sheepish looking, like she was to fault. "I apologize, but I..." What she meant to say was, _You messed up, so let's do it again. _But she would sooner talk louder than a whisper than say so.

"I...I think we should play that measure once again."

"Of course, Ichinamori-chan."

Delicate hands full of soft power. Pale hair rolling like mist down her back.

And that smile.

* * *

The glasses Kenya had given him were hurting his eyes.

Oshitari's eyes were perfect, and the lenses had a rather strong prescription; his normal, flat glasses were being adjusted this week.

But the way even the fake-real glasses changed his whole face was worth the headache. The round, shiny surfaces drew the attention away from his oval, annoyingly large eyes and weak chin.

And they just made him look so much _cooler. _

He rubbed them against the softness of his trousers.

Light padding stopped next to him. Sei's light skin blushed against the beige blazer. A small pile of books rested in her arms, and a long strand of pale, soft hair trailed gracefully across her arm to twirl at her stomach.

"Ah, Oshitari-kun," Ichinamori greeted quietly. "There you are."

Yuushi realized he wasn't wearing his glasses. It made him feel like a stranger. He felt like a nobody. A strange wimp with something key missing. She looked at him in that wide-eyed way of hers, and he smoothly polished the glasses against his sleeve and brought them onto his face.

Immediately, cool Yuushi came back.

He took up control and smirked. "Of course I'm here. Where else would I be?"

Sei's eyes widened, briefly, before creasing into familiar, luminescent half moons.

* * *

"What would you like for dinner, Sei?"

"Anything's good, Mother."

The same constant acquiescence surrounded Mitsuki-sama's daughter.

"Oh."

Her mother fidgeted uncomfortably from where she bent, awkwardly petting Nini's head under the pretense to shush the kitten's meowing for attention, but really just to seem occupied. When she was Sei's age, all Mitsuki had wanted to do was talk to her friends and play pranks on the boys.

What had she done to make her daughter like this?

"Well, would you like a snack?"

Sei smiled that same gentle smile that felt as perfectly disconnected as an unplugged cable.

"No, thank you, Mother. I'll be in my room."

Mitsuki-sama put her chin on her hand as her daughter's soft footsteps disappeared up the stairs. She often wondered how Sei fared at school- a shy but bright girl, her teachers called her, but she wondered how Sei _really _was.

People took advantage of girls like Sei.

Quiet, sensitive, wall-flowers like Sei.

The kind everyone thought they knew but would never really understand.

* * *

The story behind the glasses really wasn't as dramatic as he made it out to be, Oshitari had to admit.

But between Keigo and his theatrics, the strange drama preceding the entire team wherever they'd go, and his own helpless trait of sparkling wit, Yuushi had found the one thing that really held him together.

His glasses.

It may have just been metaphorical at first, but now, he'd even started using a lavender-scented cleaning spray to calm him down. The light aroma made it easier to keep his cool whenever Atobe's always higher grades bested his own, or Choutarou and Shishido beat him and Gakuto, or even when a suddenly sad, unexpected turn occurred in his latest novel.

Without them, he would fall down, down, down. He was loser Yuushi. Elementary Yuushi.

And then they'd be resting poignantly on the bridge of his nose, shiny circles of perfection: and with them came suave Yuushi.

Collected Yuushi.

_Confident and calm and dead cool._

They felt like the only stable things in the spinning world: two lenses on a wire frame.

* * *

"Perhaps with a bit of rubato in this area?" her finger traced the measure, and her left hand touched the few keys in a chord progression. "And then a crescendo directly into the next?"

A crescendo was a rather bold choice in that area, and honestly, caught Oshitari a bit off guard; the piece maintained a very quiet semblance throughout. Also, didn't they say music reflected a person's personality? It only made sense that quiet Sei play quiet music.

"Mm. Perhaps, though, the quiet would better settle the next section."

Ichinamori blushed in that way of hers that lit up her face and colored her cheeks. "S-Sure, Oshitari-kun. Anything's fine."

Something like annoyance bubbled up at her sheepishness. It showed prominently on her face and in her stutter. And worse, she didn't even seem to care.

Why couldn't she hide it like everyone else did?

Like how he had to?

"Why do you do that?"

Sei looked up, surprised. His face was a hint of a scowl, like he was upset at her. Sei shuffled uncomfortably in her skirt. People were never upset with her. She'd been a good person to people. She'd leave them alone.

"D-do what exactly, Oshitari-kun?"

"That." He pointed at her with an irritated expression, making his blue hair seem to rustle. "Quiet."

Ah. Not him too.

"This is just who I am, Oshitari-kun," she lamented softly, eyes so sad-looking that he almost apologized, offered her words of solace, tell her he wanted what she had in that quiet, tell her Sei Ichinamori was the most flawless girl he'd ever know within herself.

But he smirked.

"Hm. I suppose that's the only explanation."

"And where are you?"

Even Sei seemed startled by her question.

His eyes flashed dangerously.

"What was that, Ichinamori-chan?"

A tilt of her head.

A curtain of misty locks spilling across her shoulder.

A shake of the head. A turn to peer at his reflection in the cold, black piano.

And that sad, sad smile.

* * *

Oshitari Yuushi wasn't anything special.

He was just as foreign to Sei as the rest of the Hyotei student body; disconnectedly polite, witty, clever, constantly teasing her. But he was the only hand she'd ever touched that didn't pull away at the mere prospect of something more interesting.

She knew herself as a person. She knew how people saw her: pale, petite, polite, perfect. And even her family had a certain air of detachment around her, laughter dimming when she entered, like she'd just caught them doing something incredibly guilty.

Ichinamori didn't know _why _she was like this.

_Why can't she be more talkative? Why can't she have louder opinions? Why can't her voice rise higher and louder? Why can't she taste more eccentric than vanilla?_

Those questions passed through her own mind more times than Sei could count. She _felt _them pass through her mother's mind, her brother's, her teachers', her peers'. It wasn't anyone's _fault _she liked being like this.

So why did she have to change if this was how she was and wanted to be?

Was this not what they wanted from her?

Only Oshitari-kun was honest around her, and it was something Sei longed for others to be.

He was snarky and irritating at times, but sometimes, like that time she'd caught him polishing his glasses, he could be so blatantly open. Caught up in the spinning world. Lost and lonely, almost as much as she was.

* * *

"Sei-chan."

Ichinamori glanced up with wide eyes. Oshitari had called her by her first name. Sei nervously wrapped a long piece of misty hair around her forearm. She wasn't a nervous girl by nature.

What was this then?

"Sei-chan."

Oh, no. He expected her to reply. Was it acceptable for her to reciprocate? If she didn't, would he take offense?

"Sei-chan."

"Y-yes...Oshitari-kun?"

"Would you hand me my bookmark, if you will?"

"Yes...yes, of course."

He paused, hand outstretched, eyes tracing her anxious face. Sei paled even more and bit her lip, focusing on writing the measures on her piano score.

Whenever anyone talked to her, it seemed she went into near hysterics at the slightest irritation.

_She wouldn't last two seconds with Keigo, _he thought, grinning slightly. _With that soft voice and quiet, ordinary personality, chances are, he'd accidently step on her._

Her features were sharper than her personality, at least. A petite nose and finely-lined lips made to smile gave her face a calm, serene expression. Sapphire eyes flickering like the ocean tilted up slightly. A tiny, very pale splash of freckles brushed across her nose.

He rubbed his eyes; those glasses were really making him dizzy. He put them down for a second; strangely enough, around Sei, he felt rather indifferent with or without them on.

Sei was pretty cool, actually. Not in that conventional way, like how Shishido named everything either 'lame' or 'super lame'. And certainly not in the way most student thought 'cool' was long bangs and short skirts and loud, obnoxious parties and cheap alcohol.

She was just..._there_. Pure, clean, untainted by politics and other people. And that- Yuushi stared at his glasses on the table- was very cool.

_I really am dizzy; perhaps it's this new cleaning scent._

In a moment, her eyes widened at him as she peered up. Her thin lips were poised as if she were to speak. Oshitari felt a strong urge to whip the glasses back on. He wanted to bring back collected Yuushi- cool Yuushi- because _he_'d know how to deal with this.

Sei was going to say how stupid he looked without them on, or scowl at his vanity at even using them, or tear another gaping hole in his hidden side where dozens of others had peppered him with bullets already.

But, "Ah, Oshitari-kun," was all she said, in that barely audible voice of hers. "There you are."

Before turning back, writing filling each measure in her music.

He stopped his hand reaching, touching the frame of his glasses. Truth. That was what Sei had. It was what made him scowl whenever he saw her blush or turn away- he never had the luxury of doubt, or imperfection, or fear.

Oshitari Yuushi had it all together. Wrapped up in a pair of fake glasses.

_Ah, Oshitari-kun. There you are._

He excused himself from the library, finding himself at the tennis courts. Practice was canceled because of the rain, and heavy, fat drops fell like blessings from the sky.

His first step felt like cold and wet and thunderous gray skies; the second, freshness and newness and rolling mists; the third and on, vulnerability and loneliness and watching a spinning world go by; yet somehow spinning with it.

Like quietness filled with a simple, lovely melody on the hopes that someone higher would look down and shelter them all from this rain.

Like...like Sei.

Simple, satisfied, soft, sad, smiling, _Sei. _

* * *

**I'd really appreciate it if you'd review if you like it, and _especially _if you don't or have suggestions for me!**

**Note: I do not own Prince of Tennis or Yimura's song, "Passing By"**

_**A Bit of Bad Humor to End the Angst:**_

**Author: "I'm proud. I actually like this one. I think you're a great Mary-Sue."**

**Sei: "Ah, b-but I'm not..."**

**Author: "Look at you! Can't even get a word out! And those very nicely-written stutters."**

**Sei: "I'm not a Mary-Sue, I think-"**

**Author: "Haha. Too cute. Too cute."**

**Sei: "But I like myself as myself..."**

**Author: "LOLOLOL."**


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